Dezeen showroom: Swiss furniture brand Vitra has launched the Tip Ton RE, its first chair made from plastic recovered from household recycling collections.

Designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, founders of Barber Osgerby, designed the original Tip Ton chair for Vitra in 2011.

This new edition, the Tip Ton RE, is made of recycled polypropylene that is sourced from Germany's yellow bag scheme, where household waste plastic and metal is collected by local waste disposal.

The polypropylene is sorted out, shredded, cleaned and turned into reusable plastic granules. Vitra has added no dyes to the Tip Ton RE, which gives the chair a light-grey colour with a subtle speckled finish.

"We wanted to keep the material as clean as possible, so what you see is what you get," said Vitra's chief design officer Christian Grosen Rasmussen.

"In the grey, there are tiny speckles of other colours that will vary a little from chair to chair. But, for me, that adds interest, it pushes our perception of what plastic is," he added.

"The slight variation in the recycled material adds depth and gives it a story, like the way the structure of a piece of wood tells you how the tree grew."

Like the original chair, the Tip Ton RE has a rocking chair-style base designed to tip forward underneath the sitter, encouraging good posture by straightening the pelvis and spine. Vitra supplies the chair to schools and libraries, as well as for home office and dining settings.

Remaking the chair in recycled materials is part of the company's exploration of more sustainable production methods.

Product: Tip Ton RE
Designer: Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby
Brand: Vitra
Contact: [email protected]

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